Dr. Melba Ketchum is a veterinarian and specializes in DNA testing. She said her company started analyzing tissue samples collected around the US about five years ago by people trying to prove the existence of Bigfoot.

“We have saliva, we have bark scraping, we have blood we have a little bit of everything,” Ketchum said.

She said she was skeptical until the results came in.

“It tells me that they’re Human-Hybrid,” she said of the tests. “So they are a type of people but they’re different from us.”

She said the results from her testing are going through what is called a peer review.

“We have at our disposal Hi-Def footage that will not be released until which time the publication is finished,” she said. “Hi-Def video of some sasquatch it’s quite remarkable. It’s amazing.”

About Craig WoolheaterCo-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.

Welcome to the brave new world of viral science. Not virology…science by viral meme.

Time was, no self-respecting academic would consider releasing research in this way, and no self-respecting discipline would countenance giving any attention to such a procedure for disseminating news of discoveries. Not no more.

Dr. Ketchum may be way more sophisticated than most here want to give her credit for. She may just realize the day has come when the process of vetting new discoveries in the journals is not only not necessary, it might just be it is no longer the best way to do it. I’m not going to say that is right or wrong, I’m just going to say it just might be the way it is from here on out.

As I meander around the Sasquatch phenomenon, you see people claiming to have killer video or audio that they are waiting for the right moment to release. (“Killer” is meant in the metaphorical sense, not the literal sense.)

I think in most cases, these people don’t have the confidence in their audio or video that they express.

In Ketchum’s case, I think that she believes that the “right moment” will allow her to maximize whatever financial returns might be in store. I’m speculating, of course.

This story is taking some very strange turns. Blood, saliva, hair, steak, and now a high def video ?? Great news but at this point it is nothing more than a sensational “claim” and I have not seen one shred of proof. Start backing up your “claims” because your credibility is wearing thin. If you have this kind of video then release it. Its like putting a down payment on a car/house…..show us “some” $$.

“As a sort of entree to the high-stakes, high-criticism world of Big Science, I am going to string out this DNA circus as long as possible, and just when things look to be crashing in flames, release some vid that will knock your socks off!”

– Melba Ketchum

Man I bet some people are under some real pressure to come up with that video! (Hint: pancakes.)

This is beginning to sound like an Aesop’s Fable. “The Dr. Who Cried Wolf” …or Sasquatch as it were. I grow weary of updates from Dr. Ketchum (if you can). The only thing cryptic here is her stories. Over the past year I believe I read…. “She has DNA evidence”, “She communicates with a family of sasquatches”, “She now has HD film”…wasn’t there a slab of Sasquatch meat in there somewhere? Or was that someone else with an approvable story? Let’s focus on the more exciting sasquatch news stories, like Dr. Meldrum’s blimp idea, rather than coming back this well of kookiness. It’s a very deep well.

The next blog from Dr. Ketchum should be accompanied by one or more of the many pieces of evidence she claims she has. Until then, please, please… STOP TALKING. It’s becoming uncomfortable to read 🙂

If she had the video…then why all the hoopla about the DNA…
If she’s starting to lose faith in the potential of her DNA study maybe desperation is making her tout this video?
I’d love to see it, but don’t wanna wait two years.

I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt: perhaps she is “crossing her t’s” and “dotting her i’s,” so as to have a complete presentation of one set of data supporting another in context. Failing that, she may well be looking at an end dollar scenario but the smarter thing to do would have been writing a book first.

Somebody on another forum said to me you have to have a body to confirm, it’s been done that way since Linnaeus. I replied: would Linnaeus know the first thing about a 1903 Flyer, much less an iPad Touch?

Times change, and so must science. Who knows? Maybe she is crazy. Maybe like a fox.

Seriously, where has everyone been for the past few years? Dr. Ketchum does not own the video (and she didn’t say she did), but it is owned by Adrian Erickson, and was taken by him and his researchers as part of The Erickson Project, with the purpose of being released in conjunction with the publication of the DNA study. This is super old news. Erickson has an entire documentary made awaiting the publication of the study. He was one of the study’s major contributors, and the results of the testing of his samples is paramount to the documentary. Some people (very few) have been allowed to see some of Erickson’s footage (Dr. Ketchum, Wally Hersom, reportedly Matt Moneymaker, and maybe a couple others), and all have called it absolutely amazing. It was filmed in HD, mostly in Kentucky on a large property purchased by Erickson with a long history of Sasquatch activity. You can google the Erickson Project and find out a lot about it, even finding a photo he released from one video clip of a young female Sasquatch.

She may not need to recognize that science might not accept video as conclusive.

She may be counting on the public accepting the video.

This is the thread I’m piggybacking on with Ploughboy. Maybe the old staid must-go-through-peers way of science might not be so relevant in the age of the internet and instant information. Even I’ve been cranking on and on about the Ketchum Circus. Maybe it may be. But just as maybe, if the public is already at about 30% acceptance of sasquatch, making this circus public just might circumvent the glacial grind of peer review and put the sasquatch up for Vox Populi!

The public pays scientists. Strong public pressure to find out more about what appears to be an animal the scientists missed will be pressure scientists will find very difficult to ignore, particularly when savvy folks like Meldrum start lending their voices to the effort.

Maybe she’s thought about this. Maybe she hasn’t and is lucking into it. And maybe this all crashes and burns in a real obvious HD ape suit.

I certainly hope that everything Dr. Ketchum claims she has turns out to be legit for her sake. Because if it’s not, she’s dug her hole so deep that no one will ever take her seriously ever again with regards to anything.

what i don’t get is why people are so ready to place faith in any of this. i understand that the audience for bigfoot-related ‘evidence’ is absolutely losing their mind for something to prove what they already believe, but…

you have a person with zero academic credentials doing everthing seemingly wrong while attempting to produce documented evidence of the big guy. you have even kookier hanger-on spouting even less scientifically-sound proclamations and you have erikson, who has release some of the most ludicrous looking fakes in history as someone who is supposedly backing all of this up???

really, people?? unless you are like me and are just waiting for this train for finally (and publicly) wreck, i don’t know why you are hanging on this ‘evidence’.

this entire thing is precisely why the study of bigfoot will never be taken seriously. the whole field is filled with liers, pseudo-scientists, nutjobs, and opportunists.

Where have we been the past few years? Generally ignoring sideshows like this and keeping tabs on the TBRC.

Erickson has smelled of catfish from the beginning, and the “amazing” folks you cite do little for my confidence level, that’s for sure. If that is indeed even what Ketchum is talking about, and the way this has gone who can be sure of that?

I”m not waiting for anything related to this with bated breath. Still watching the TBRC interacting with sasquatch deep in occupied habitat.

20 think Sasquatch doesn’t exist (19 saying “not science” and 1 after actually examining the evidence – though I’m starting to think this one guy is even more elusive than Sasquatch, mostly I see one of the group of 20 above put on a skeptic suit and hoax a real skeptic just for the sake of balance)

20 are on the fence leaning towards the positive

20 are on the fence leaning towards the negative

If Facebook posts and press releases get the people on the fence to lean a little more to one side, the establishment, whose purse strings are held by the public, might all of a sudden find the subject of Sasquatch rather interesting and in need of some further study.

slappy: well this is a field where if one thinks x, everyone who thinks y is a liar and a fraud. Sideshows rule the day.

The reason is this “belief” thing. Belief is never a good hook to put one’s hat on. Following the evidence is the best way to spend one’s money, hope, or what have you. (Hope, another thing to dump if you can. Just follow evidence.)

I follow what the TBRC is doing because everything they seem to think about what sasquatch might be conforms with the bulk of the evidence. Are they right? Well, proof would be nice.

We all know why we’re here. It’s great entertainment all around… like Geraldo, Maury Povich and Cops all rolled into one. Some are licking their lips anticipating a wreck to come, some think the publicity is interesting and want to see what bugs will crawl out of the woodwork, some (like myself) hope; all the noise gets more people with establishment clout to sit up and take notice… sadly, with this circus, it’s probably the wrong kind of attention… but then again, you know what they say about bad publicity (no such animal).

If you look at the human nature side of this claim, these people would have to be fiercely loyal to one another to have sat on this footage for 15 minutes, let alone an extended period of time. If it’s as good as Melba Ketchum says it is, and I had access to it, I would’ve made a copy and been blazing a trail to the highest bidder. Sad, but true. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, methinks.

Well, researching this video, the best thing I was able to find was a small picture of Dr. Leila Hadj-Chikh Ph.D.

Criag maybe you can ask Loren if he might add her to his June 17th, 2011 thread on “Cryptozoo’s Top Ten Hottest Personalities” list?

It’s a small picture of Dr Hadj-Chikh but I found it much better to look at than any confusing picture of a sleeping Bigfoot.

I read that Dr Hadj-Chikh went on an expedition with Matt Moneymaker back in 2005, so maybe since you advertise so many dating sites here on Cryptmundo, you can organize a singles mixer/Bigfoot hunt for us eligible bachelors?

First, I draw the line at Catfish bashing lol. I have been beating this thing up from the beginning but if these people have DNA evidence, and can prove it and a video that can back up their findings I will be the first one to apologize . Until then, I am not buying it. I’ve seen many “HD” videos of something that is supposed to be something but that something is unidentifiable. I hope the video she has will show the world a Sasquatch eating blue berry bagels, finally settling the age old argument, cream cheese or plain.

There is a pattern where these types of claims get more and more outlandish before the actual release of lackluster, inconclusive results. You can find these outright bids for publicity in a variety of “fringe” fields and I’m guessing they indicate some financial motive.

Well if I’m correct there was a hunter that shot a bigfoot and Dr. Ketchum and a group of scientist to study it and take samples. I also heard that Bobo from the BFRO was told about this and mentioned it on a late talk show one night. I mean if a hunter did shoot one why call in Dr. Ketchum why not just show the world what you have killed. The hunter supposively shot the thing in the head,they have taken samples from the thigh and blood has been taken. I mean the world wants to know let us in on it don’t hide it from us. I’m a believer any way so doesn’t matter to me.

Hey man, just noticed something in this paragraph that deserves comment.

“20 think Sasquatch doesn’t exist (19 saying “not science” and 1 after actually examining the evidence – though I’m starting to think this one guy is even more elusive than Sasquatch, mostly I see one of the group of 20 above put on a skeptic suit and hoax a real skeptic just for the sake of balance)”

You know, I thought that one guy was gonna require peanut butter and pancakes in front of a trail cam in my backyard, at least. I have, however, ostensibly encountered one, on another forum. When he talks about what he’s read, he seems to read the right stuff and even mentions the encounter literature. Here’s an excerpt, worth quoting at length because I am aware of nothing else like it:

—————————-

Who says they [encounter reports] are ignored? I read them rather frequently and consider anecdotal accounts to be among the most interesting purported bigfoot evidence out there. The problem is simply that we can’t do anything but duly note each new alleged eyewitness account. [all italics my emphasis] I can’t write out a specimen tag and describe a new species based on a mountain of stories from people who claim to have seen said species. Jeff Meldrum would tell you the same thing.

If physical remains of a bigfoot could be confirmed, however, that would tell us that at least some of the stories contained in that proverbial mountain of anecdotal accounts are likely to have been factually accurate. How many and which ones would still be untenable, of course, but presumably whatever information might have been associated with the physical remains could help us sort that out to increase the likelihood of picking out the accurate stories from the inaccurate ones. …

…Sure, there are plenty of accounts that read like what one might expect when an uninitiated person encounters a fantastic creature in the woods. William Roe’s is in this category. In contrast, I find Ostman’s account to be complete horse-hockey. But even if we had 1000 stories of Roe’s quality, that wouldn’t tell us anything other than 1000 people have claimed to have such-and-such an encounter. The stories don’t lead anywhere. No bigfoot has ever been tracked to its lair based on information in a eyewitness encounter story, or for that matter, from following its prints. The suggestions from the stories that there is something physical out there have not panned out in terms of leading us to a physical thing.

In contrast, we now know a lot about false memories, hallucinations, and the general unreliability of eyewitness testimony. We know that people rather commonly don furry suits (or ghillie suits) and intentionally run across the road to hoax bigfoot sightings. We know that guys like Ray Wallace and Paul Freeman fooled some really sharp people with the footprints they laid down. We know that for the past couple of years, folks who report bigfoots actually have a shot of appearing on Finding Bigfoot and enjoying a few minutes of national recognition, to the cheers and backslaps of their friends.

Thus, the “real bigfoots” explanation has so far not been demonstrated by a real bigfoot, but we’ve got multiple explanations for things that could help to convince someone that they had seen a bigfoot or provide the impetus to make up a story whole cloth. Without physical evidence confirmed to be from a bigfoot, the latter explanations are far more parsimonious than the former. …

——————————————-

Note how his entire orientation to the reports is: is each one proof? Did any one lead to proof? No thought – and I mean, the guy sounds intelligent – about how patterns are present in the reports that indicate that an external source is more likely than a made-up story. No effort to attach any report to others to discern such patterns. No effort to note the connection of reports to likely habitat – where there are generally few people – rather than to places where there are lots of people and, therefore, more expected liars. No effort to note that the people who report sightings are just the people one would expect to, were the phenomenon attached to a real animal.

No effort to understand that, when one looks at the reports the way one should, with no a priori presumption that they are all people making stuff up, the explanation of an external source generating authentic encounter reports is actually more parsimonious than this-is-all-fake.

So there you are. That one guy is (at least he claims) out there.

And not dealing with the information in any way other than as entertainment is why he remains that one guy.

One can’t just read the reports.

One has to think about what one reads, the way a scientist thinks about it.

There is more from my above skeptic-who’s-read-up that pretty much confirms (for any doubters) how he looks at evidence.

Again, italics are my emphasis, not his.

————————————————————————————
The bigger issue though is that you’re confounding “delusion” and “folklore.” You’re assuming that people who report bigfoots (that I say were never there) are suffering from delusions, i.e., they really thought they saw a bigfoot, but they really didn’t. Yes, some who’ve reported bigfoots have been deluded, but many (most?) who’ve reported bigfoots have simply been participating in the beloved bigfoot folklore. You spin a yarn around a campfire or report it to an online sightings database. If you want your report to have maximum effect – say to help convince someone based on your info that they had seen a bigfoot too in a nearby area – then you make the bigfoot in your story generally conform to what folklore says bigfoots are and what they do.

The bigfoot of folklore is a creature of the forests: so says Albert Ostman, William Roe, Roger Patterson, Paul Freeman, Boggy Creek, Harry and the Hendersons, Jack Links Jerky – forest bigfoots one and all. While everyone would put their own spin on their bigfoot, if it deviates too much from the folklore (like, if “yours” had a tail) then it’s not going to be considered a bigfoot and it won’t end up in the BFRO database. So, to me, the “bigfoot correlates with rainfall” stuff is about as compelling as lake monsters correlating with the distribution of lakes.
————————————————————————————-

So here is what this guy thinks, right in his statements:

1. He states his a priori bias early on (that I say were never there) .
2. He presumes delusion and happy yarn-spinning. His evidence is….?
3. He presumes that “bigfoot folklore” includes things like: they live in forests; they live in areas with x annual rainfall; they are sighted in X places…and that everyone who has a sighting (who isn’t deluded) is all read up on this so they can make their sighting sound believable.
4. He doesn’t address at all how the folkloric presumption that they live in forests addresses those sightings that occur away from forests. (Presumably these people are all wildlife biologists who know what “riparian corridors” are.)

This is someone who, when he reads a report, presumes My Favorite Bigfoot Character: The Omnipotent Hoaxer, who knows just how to make it believable!

That’s a particularly complex form of denial. But there it is, just to show you it’s out there.

DWA, I’m going to be a bit more charitable here. I’m willing to say the idea of all Bigfoot sighting reports being a product of folklore is at least an hypothesis. Now, if you have an hypothesis, good scientific procedure requires you to either test that hypothesis through further investigation and collection of data, and abandon it if you can’t validate it. If you are forced to abandon it, you either have to concede to an alternate hypothesis (i.e., Bigfoots exist and the reports are of encounters with real animals), or you must propose another, testable, hypothesis. Then you must test THAT one. You can’t sit on your theory, not test it, and think you’ve accomplished anything valid.

So, you say all Bigfoot sightings are folklore? Tell us, where is your data that supports that? How would you propose to test that? (Hint: Application of circular reasoning is not testing)

No-one has ever become rich and famous by finding Bigfoot, I highly doubt anyone ever will. Granted some have become “legends” by looking and never finding… but someone who actually finds/encounters Bigfoot is more likely to die a laughingstock and a pauper.

Some reports can be explained by folklore, misidentification and a culture of hoaxing… but all of them? Especially the ones from people with community ties/ reputations to protect and the ones who are able to observe and recall with accuracy even amidst the stress of life threatening situations (policemen, soldiers, doctors, EMTs etc…). Here’s one of my new favorite BFRO sighting reports.

Personally I think the likelihood of a relict hominid living in the wilds of North America is more likely than a guy running around in the woods at night with a ghillie suit and a top secret and hitherto unheard-of portable “less than lethal” crowd control generator. The output of these generators is patterned after the ULF (ultra low frequency) sounds created by large predators, the sounds are felt more than heard and create a distinct feeling of unease and an urge to vacate the area… to the point of loss of motor control/ small muscle coordination after prolonged exposure.

This could help explain the multiple accounts of people trying to shoot them and failing. In one report an experienced hunter recounted emptying his lever action rifle at one… he did, but somehow he didn’t pull the trigger on a single round. Also, one of the most common answers to “Why didn’t you shoot it?” is, “I drew a bead on it, but couldn’t pull the trigger… it looked too human.”. The inability to kill one’s own kind is a built in response (See Grossman’s Pulitzer nominated, “On Killing”) and would not be triggered by a bear or other similar animal.

In general, show me something concrete. I believe there is a large hominid out there in the woods, but that doesn’t constitute proof. Eyewitness accounts don’t constitute proof. Blobsquatches don’t constitute proof. To Alamo specifically concerning the inability to shoot. I’ve seen all of those reactions caused by something as simple as a very large buck, I imagine trying to shoot at a very large presumably dangerous if provoked ape-like creature would be even more nerve wracking.

There are plenty of “concrete” examples… OK, plaster, but close enough. Trackways are one of the most common and studied forms of BF evidence. Scientists whose academic credentials make them supremely qualified to judge, Grover Krantz and Jeff Meldrum, find the evidence extremely compelling.

Eyewitness reports, when taken in isolation, are highly unreliable… but when they meet certain criteria and are taken in aggregate, they can be more reliable and accurate than the observations and opinions of experts (see Surowiecki’s, ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ – you don’t have to read the whole thing, just look at a summary and see how it can be applied to the BFRO or other such databases). If you are interested in the subject, you should read the reports from a purely academic perspective and make your own observations and determinations.

@ Alamo. I don’t mean proof enough for me, I don’t need more proof. I meant proof enough for the scientific community at large. Something amazing enough to MAKE them pull their collective heads out of their collective anal orifices. The average scientist that has bothered to make a public statement on this subject has so much invested in disproving the existence of these (creatures?) that you’d basically need to shove their faces into a still warm body to get them to admit otherwise. I think at this point the average citizen has no real problem with accepting that there is a large, unknown hominid out there if they take the time to study the facts, such as trackways because they aren’t affected personally by it (truthfully, I think it would be a major shake up of everyone’s pysche even if they don’t realize it yet) so they’d be much more willing to believe than an anthropologist who has spent his entire career saying that it simply isn’t possible. Look at what it took to make scientists to believe in the existence of giant rogue waves despite multiple eyewitnesses and ample evidence of damage done by them.